Azure technical setup notes¶

Technical Configuration¶

To set up a free account, you must:

• Get a Sponsorship (see Azure_VPS_setup_notes)
• Create a Subscription linked to the Sponsorship (see Azure_VPS_setup_notes)
• (Strongly recommended) Grant access to the subscription to other users.
• Create a Resource Group linked to the Subscription
• Create a Virtual Machine (and associated resources) linked to the Resource Group

Create a resource group¶

• Select "Resource Groups" from the main Azure portal (left sidebar).
• Select Create and give it a name.
• Your subscription should be pre-selected since you only have the one.
• Click Review and Create, then Create.

Create a virtual machine¶

• Click on your new resource group in the Azure Portal.
• Click Create.
• Search for the name of the image you want (e.g. Debian 13 "Trixie).
  • If you picked an image that shows an hourly cost, it's the wrong one.
• See the screenshots below for configuration of the "Basics" and "Disk" tabs. The other tabs I keep with the defaults. My standard VPS type is now D2ps_v6.
  • "D2" is general-purpose VM, we always select this. "a" is AMD-series (old preference), "p" is ARM64, "d" is temp disk included (we don't need this), "s" supports premium SSD disks. v6 is the latest gen, always use the latest gen.

Post-provisioning configuration¶

Get serial console working¶

Serial console is necessary for single-user mode, and troubleshooting if SSH fails.

It's normally working out of the box now. Go to "Serial Console" in the VM left navigation. If it doesn't work:

• Go to Boot Diagnostics in the VM's left nav.
• Click Settings at the top.
• Select Enable with managed storage account.
• Save.

Now Serial Console will work.

Modify Firewall Rules¶

• Click on your new virtual machine in the Azure portal.
• Click Networking in the side navigation.
• You should see your firewall settings. They should look like the screenshot below, except they'll be missing the two items circled.
• Add the "allow_ping" and "Port_5665" rules to the Inbound Port Rules as shown in the screenshot.

Add a swapfile¶

Complete instructions are here but in short, add this to /etc/waagent.conf for an 8GB swapfile:

    ResourceDisk.Format=y
    ResourceDisk.EnableSwap=y
    ResourceDisk.SwapSizeMB=8192

Then run service walinuxagent restart.